The present invention relates to a supporting structure for fish nets or the like, of the kind disclosed in the preamble to claim 1, a fish net being defined for purpose of this specification as an open net for confining fish to a limited volume of water.
In outdoor pisciculture, fish nets have been used for a long while, these being attached to a support structure floating on the water surface so that the greater portion of such a net is below the water surface while a portion of its mainly vertical walls are above the surface.
The supporting structures used so far have often consisted of a number of air-filled petrol drums on which a wooded frame carrying a fish net has been attached, or by a number of bodies floating on the surface or attached to the sea or lake bottom, which support framed structures to which one or more fish nets are attached. These carrying structures, often manufactured by the pisciculturist himself, suffer however from a number of drawbacks. Among the drawback can be mentioned that the supporting structures have a short life, are heavy and voluminous, resulting in that they must be erected at the place where they are to be used, and they also have deficient attaching means for the nets, are easily broken up in an even comparatively minor rough sea. They contain a large number of details which makes erection time-consuming and cannot be taken apart, thus hardly being transportable from one place to another, which is necessary if they are to be used in water which freezes to ice during the winter.
In later years, pisciculture has however been rationalized considerably, which has involved increased demands on the fish nets, on the structures carrying them and that these structures together with the fish nets supported by them can be generally used in any water at all where the environment is suitable for pisciculture.